Earthworks DrumKit DK7 User manual

User’s Guide
DK7
DrumKit™
An Entire New World
of Pristine Drum Sound

Inside Front Cover
EARTHWORKS WARRANTY
Please Remember to Register
Your Microphone(s) for Warranty at:
www.earthworksaudio.com/register
All Earthworks®products carry a limited warranty (parts and labor).
To register your product, you will need the serial number
and series letter for each microphone.
You can locate this information
between the pins of the XLR connector
1234
A
Series Letter
Serial Number

Congratulations on your purchase of the Earthworks DK7 DrumKit™ High
Denition Multi-microphone Drum System. When compared to conventional
drum mics, Earthworks mics will provide more detail in the attack, reproduce
subtle low level details, near-perfect polar response, far less phase issues
whenclose miking and nearly twice the amount of rear rejection. We welcome
you into an entire new world of pristine drum sound using Earthworks High
Denition Drum Microphones™.
Happy Drumming!
Please verify that you have received everything listed below.
Included with the DK7 DrumKit™ Drum Microphone System:
2 – SR25 Cardioid Microphones (overheads)
4 – DM20 DrumMic™ (toms & snare)
1 – SR20LS (kickdrum)
4 – RM1 RimMount™ (for DM20s)
3 – SRW3 Foam Windscreens (for SR25s & SR20LS)
4 – PW1 Windscreens (for DM20s)
1 – High Impact Carrying Case
with custom foam insert
1 – User’s Manual
Version 10 May 1, 2018 1
Before You Start
When connecting the DK7 condenser microphones to a preamp with phantom
power, allow up to one minute for the microphone to settle. Plugging in the
microphone “hot” (phantom power already present at the input) will not damage
the microphone, and is actually preferred for faster settling. It is normal for any
phantom powered mic to “pop” when plugged in or powered up. Make sure to
mute the signal to speakers and/or headphones when phantom power is rst
applied.

IMPORTANT NOTICE - Please Read This:
Drums, Microphone Output Level & Preamp Input Pads
The SR25, DM20 & SR20LS are designed for drum applications, and in most
cases will not require the use of a pad to prevent overloading microphone pre-
amps in mixers or consoles, computer audio interfaces and external preamps.
Different Types of Preamp Input Pads
Some microphone preamps have a built-in pad that can be switched in or out
which are not attenuators that precede the preamplier input, but instead just re-
duce the gain of the preamplier. These so-called pads will typically provide no
preamp input overload protection from high level microphone signals (see Fig.
1-A). Other preamps have actual attenuators (pads) that precede the preamplier
input that will provide input overload protection (Fig. 1-B). Such pads typically
provide 10dB or 20dB of attenuation. If your preamps have no pad prior to the
preamp input, an external XLR type microphone pad can be used such as the
Earthworks LP20 LevelPad™ that provides 20dB of attenuation when plugged
into the microphone cable.
2
XLR mic pads can be inserted into the microphone cable in one of the three
ways shown in Figures 2-A, 2-B and 2-C below:
Figures 2-A & 2-B
XLR Mic Pad
inserted at
the microphone or
in the mic cable
CAUTION: Plugging the
LevelPad™ into the mic
input of a mixer can cause
damage to the mixer input
connector if the LevelPad™
receives a hard push at the
side. However, if you are
careful, placing the Level-
Pad™ at the mixer mic input
can provide greater acces-
sibility for inserting or re-
moving the LevelPad™.
A
Figure 2-C XLR Mic Pad inserted into mixer mic input
B
C
Figures 1-A & 1-B
Types of Preamp
Input Pads
A
Mic Input
Pad
Mic
Preamp
B
Mic Input
Pad Mic
Preamp

3
Miking Drums
There are many ways to mic drums and most every recording or live sound engi-
neer has their own way of doing this. Our objective is not to indicate which drum
miking approach is better, but to make suggestions and look at advantages and
disadvantages of each.
Multi-microphone Method
The objective of multi-microphone drum miking is to place a separate micro-
phone on most or all the elements of the drum set. Typically, separate mics
are used on snare, toms, hi-hat and kickdrum, along with one or two overhead
microphones. The overhead mics pick up the overall sound of the drum set
including cymbals (which are typically not miked separately). By this method,
the mixing engineer can control the level, and signal processing (limiting, EQ,
etc.) for each element of the drum set (toms, snare, hi-hat, etc.). For live
sound, multi-miked drums are desirable by providing more control and more
gain before acoustic feedback. When recording, multi-miking drums in a large
room with high ambient sound reduces the amount of unwanted room sound
and provides greater control of the drum mix.
Earthworks Near-Perfect Polar Response
One of Earthwork’s proprietary technologies is near-perfect polar response
i.e. very uniform frequency response over the front 160 degrees of the micro-
phone. Conventional microphones (even expensive ones) have a loss of high
frequencies at the sides of the microphone (Fig. 3-B). If you ever tried to put
three singers on a single directional microphone you found that the singer at
the front of the mic sounded great, but the two at the sides sounded muffled
due to the lack of high frequency pickup at the sides of the mic. In contrast,
the Earthworks proprietary polar technology provides virtually the same fre-
quency response at the sides of the microphone as at the front (Fig. 3-A). In
addition, this uniform frequency response at the front and sides of the micro-
phone dramatically reduces phase cancellation issues when multi-miking drums.
Figures 3-A & 3-B Earthworks vs. Conventional Polar Response
Earthworks Polar
Earthworks SR30 Cardioid
500
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Competitive Cardioid
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AWithin
3dB
500Hz to
16kHz
at 80º
off-axis
Conventional Polar
BWithin
10dB
500Hz to
15kHz
and
Within16dB
to 20kHz
at 80º
off-axis
Earthworks SR30 Cardioid
500
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Competitive Cardioid
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